Not interested in how religious bodies treat marriage, just the state.

The thing about traditional marriage is it doesn't exist anymore. There's very little difference between a heterosexual relationship and a gay one these days, and sooner or later the government's gonna catch up. It just doesn't make sense to deprive this of gay couples anymore.

Try telling that to Some Girl lol

What was the deal with the No Country thread? I wasn't around then.

Ha, it wasn't that big of a deal. There was just an uncomfortable amount of people saying embarrassingly stupid things. Doesn't help that I read through every single page right after watching the movie.

Damo Suzuki: So, um, yeah. Getting older isn't as bad as it sounds. Better than being young & poor (DjDrake) or young & slutty (SG) or young, poor and slutty (Paves); am I right?

Not interested in how religious bodies treat marriage, just the state.

The thing about traditional marriage is it doesn't exist anymore. There's very little difference between a heterosexual relationship and a gay one these days, and sooner or later the government's gonna catch up. It just doesn't make sense to deprive this of gay couples anymore.

Try telling that to Some Girl lol

What a psycho, right?

No it won't, it'll be stupid, and we're already doing something stupid.

Hey, man. It's TRADITION.
Never mind that that TRADITION means ignoring any positive progression of equal rights that has occurred in our modern world, the same kind that made everybody not consider women and blacks to be actual people by not letting them vote or learn how to read or do anything, really.
But, hey, sometimes that's what your religion requires you to believe. Understandable.
Terrible thread.
Also, good luck, faggots.

Damo Suzuki: So, um, yeah. Getting older isn't as bad as it sounds. Better than being young & poor (DjDrake) or young & slutty (SG) or young, poor and slutty (Paves); am I right?

Never mind that that TRADITION means ignoring any positive progression of equal rights that has occurred in our modern world, the same kind that made everybody not consider women and blacks to be actual people by not letting them vote or learn how to read or do anything, really.

First they came for the leather daddies, but I was not a leather daddy, so I did nothing......
Then they came for the Piss Twinks, but I was not a piss twink, so I did nothing.....
Then they came for me, and there was no one left in the bath house to speak up for me

(12-23) 20:49 PST -- Attorney General Jerry Brown's legal challenge to California's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage marks the first time that the state's top lawyer has refused to defend a newly enacted ballot measure since 1964 - another epic discrimination case that eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

In November 1964, an overwhelming 65 percent majority of the state's voters approved Proposition 14, a constitutional amendment that overturned a fair-housing law and allowed racial discrimination in property sales and rentals.

Attorney General Thomas Lynch - newly appointed to succeed Stanley Mosk, a Prop. 14 opponent who had just been named to the state Supreme Court - concluded the initiative violated U.S. constitutional standards and left private lawyers representing sponsors as its sole defenders in court.

The state Supreme Court - minus Mosk, who removed himself from the case - overturned Prop. 14 in 1966, and the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit in 1967. Lynch filed written arguments urging the nation's high court to rule the measure unconstitutional.

Brown personally opposed Proposition 8, the initiative restoring the ban on gay and lesbian marriages that the state Supreme Court had struck down in May, but said the day after the Nov. 4 election that he planned to defend it in court.
Brown's reversal

On Friday, however, Brown took the side of gay rights groups and other opponents of the measure. He told the state Supreme Court that his usual obligation to defend state laws must give way, in this case, to his duty to uphold fundamental rights in the state Constitution.

It is a rare example of an attorney general taking on a law enacted by either the Legislature or the voters. The office typically represents state officials or agencies in court and often defends laws that the attorney general opposes.

Brown, for example, is on record as an opponent of capital punishment, but defends death verdicts against appeals by condemned prisoners.

"If a reasonable argument can be made in support of a law, that's what the attorney general will normally do," said Nelson Kempsky, who was chief deputy attorney general under Democrat John Van de Kamp and a top law enforcement assistant under Republican George Deukmejian. "But you can't feed it into a computer."

Brown's action Friday drew varied responses from his predecessors, including Deukmejian, who was attorney general from 1979 to 1983 before serving two terms as governor.

The state Constitution's mandate that the attorney general "see that the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" includes a nearly ironclad duty to defend the laws in court, said Deukmejian, who is retired from his law practice and lives in Long Beach.

The only exception, he said, is "if a law is clearly unconstitutional, based on earlier court decisions. ... If you think it's unconstitutional but there really is no clear law, then you have to put that aside" and defend the law, he said.
Deukmejian's fight

Deukmejian's criteria might be considered rigid in light of an episode during his tenure as attorney general, when he not only refused to defend a state law but sued the governor - who happened to be Brown - to try to overturn it.

Brown had just signed a measure that entitled state employees to union representation. Deukmejian, after taking office in 1979, argued that the law violated the State Personnel Board's constitutional authority to set employee salaries, and took his case to the state Supreme Court after his staff discussed the measure with the Personnel Board.

The justices were unimpressed. They upheld the law in a separate case, dismissed Deukmejian's suit, and castigated him for turning against his former clients.

Brown doesn't appear to be vulnerable to the same criticism, as he hasn't sued anyone and has left the defense of Prop. 8 to its proponents. But his argument against the initiative isn't based on any clearly established legal doctrine or precedent, the standard suggested by Deukmejian and other former attorneys general.

In his filing, Brown said Prop. 8 is probably valid under the state high court's past criteria for ballot measures that amend the state Constitution. In particular, he said, it is not such a fundamental change to the structure of government that it would amount to a constitutional revision, which requires a two-thirds legislative vote to reach the ballot.

But he said Prop. 8 should be struck down because "inalienable rights" in the state Constitution, including the liberty and privacy rights that support equal access to marriage, shouldn't be subject to repeal by majority vote. The court has never considered that theory.

"My job is to see that the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced, and that includes Article I of the Constitution," where those rights are set forth, Brown said in an interview.
In defense of Brown

Van de Kamp, Deukmejian's successor as attorney general from 1983 to 1991, was willing to cut Brown a little slack.

"If he clearly feels the Constitution's been violated, then I think he has a duty to the Constitution first, and secondarily to the vote of the people," said Van de Kamp, who now practices law in Los Angeles.

But he said an attorney general should be firmly convinced that a law is unconstitutional before refusing to defend it, an action he never took. Van de Kamp also said Brown would probably be on more solid ground if he were arguing that Prop. 8 violated the U.S. Constitution, rather than invoking the California Constitution.

His successor, Republican Dan Lungren, now a representative from Gold River (Sacramento County), was sharply critical.

"You are the people's attorney. When the people make a decision, you give them the benefit of the doubt," said Lungren, who added that he never refused to defend a state law while serving as attorney general from 1991 to 1999.

Referring to Brown, he said, "I think it's very troubling when you announce that you're going to defend (Prop. 8) and then, some weeks later, say you're not going to defend it."

That leaves the majority of voters at a disadvantage, Lungren said, as they now face courtroom opposition from both the plaintiffs seeking to overturn the initiative and the state's lawyer who ordinarily represents them.

The Prop. 8 campaign committee, called Protect Marriage, will now defend the measure by itself at the upcoming hearing, and has been given until Jan. 5 by the court to file additional arguments in response to Brown.

Lungren, who supported Prop. 8, said Brown's legal argument against the measure is harmful to voters' interests.

"You say something is an inalienable right and the people have no right to change it," Lungren said. "We're removing more and more governmental activity from the decision-making of the people and their elected representatives."

CHICAGO (CBS) ― A bill on civil unions for same sex couples goes before an Illinois House committee on Thursday, and published reports say a downstate Mormon Church plans to fight the legislation.

The Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, or HB 2234, would give same-sex couples the same protections and benefits as married couples.

The legislation was introduced in February by state Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago). It supplants an earlier civil unions bill, HB 1834, which Harris introduced two years ago. That bill passed out of committee, but died at the end of the legislative session due to the impeachment of Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Harris also issued a bill for same sex marriage a few years ago, but later abandoned it.

The current bill has picked up 12 co-sponsors, and is to be discussed Thursday before the Youth and Family Committee.

Meanwhile, a fracas erupted after the publication of an e-mail published on the Web news site Box Turtle Bulletin, reportedly from an Illinois Mormon Temple and calling for recipients to mobilize against the legislation.

The e-mail, reportedly sent by a member of the Nauvoo Illinois Temple 3rd Ward, claimed in part that the bill would "empower the public schools to begin teaching this lifestyle to our young children regardless of parental requests otherwise. It will also create grounds for rewriting all social mores; the current push in Massachusetts is to recognize and legalize all transgender rights," according to Box Turtle Bulletin and other news sources.

A later e-mail from temple Bishop Chris Church posted on Box Turtle Bulletin said while members may take action as they wish, "the church does not take any position in relation to these issues."

Harris told the Chicago Free Press that he had received calls that stemmed from the Nauvoo Mormon Church appeal, but mostly not from constituents. He also told the newspaper that the e-mail's representation of the legislation was "full of errors," and used "exaggeration, distortion and lies."

The Free Press reported that Nauvoo Temple officials said the e-mail did not originate with them.

The Mormon Church is widely considered the main force that led to the approval of Proposition 8, which banned same sex marriage in California.The California Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments Thursday on lawsuits filed to overturn the ban.

If the Illinois civil unions bill passes out of committee, the full Illinois House would be able to vote on it.

Meanwhile, same sex marriage opponents hope to put state constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage on the ballot in 2010.

I voted yay. However, I actually made a speech at the University of Wisconsin, the capital building to be exact, about whether or not gays should be able to adopt. I said no and got out voted by about 120-10. I would say about 4 of those 10 were my friends or peers who didn't want me to look like a complete fool up there. I did anyway, gave a pretty ill prepared speech and deserved the snickers from the crowd as I gave the speech. That aside what is the SOMB opinion on that.
Should gays be allowed to adopt? Supposedly there has been research done that it doesn't effect the way a kid is brought up in any way. I actually know a child that is parented by two gay parents and he is very, very normal. And of course a home is a home and its better that a child goes to home of gays rather than a home of abusive white trash.
On the other side although it may not effect the child if word gets out he would be ridiculed like none other. The kid would become an outcast and might become just another tally on the ever growing juvenile suicide rate.

I voted yay. However, I actually made a speech at the University of Wisconsin, the capital building to be exact, about whether or not gays should be able to adopt. I said no and got out voted by about 120-10. I would say about 4 of those 10 were my friends or peers who didn't want me to look like a complete fool up there. I did anyway, gave a pretty ill prepared speech and deserved the snickers from the crowd as I gave the speech. That aside what is the SOMB opinion on that.

Should gays be allowed to adopt? Supposedly there has been research done that it doesn't effect the way a kid is brought up in any way. I actually know a child that is parented by two gay parents and he is very, very normal. And of course a home is a home and its better that a child goes to home of gays rather than a home of abusive white trash.

On the other side although it may not effect the child if word gets out he would be ridiculed like none other. The kid would become an outcast and might become just another tally on the ever growing juvenile suicide rate.

of course they should, you dope!

I'm actually amazed at the number of kids in our area being raised by gay parents. I've never heard any kids make fun of any of them. Some are really great kids. Some are pains in the butt. IN other words, they're pretty damn normal.

ugh.

Sail Away: The Songs of Randy Newman -7.5/10Dusty Springfield - Dusty in Memphis 8.5/10Buddy & Julie Miller - Written in Chalk wow, first listen, but great great record! 9.3/10Justin Townes Earle - Midnight at the Moviessurprisingly great, never picked up his past releases, but this one's knocking my socks off right away, 8.7/10M. Ward - Hold Time 8.0/10Neko Case -Middle Cyclone her best I've heard is my initial impression, but too soon to rate, haven't had a really good listen yet 7.8/10

On the other side although it may not effect the child if word gets out he would be ridiculed like none other. The kid would become an outcast and might become just another tally on the ever growing juvenile suicide rate.

Kids will always find something to pick on other kids for. Plus, most gay couple who adopt don't live in rural Arkansas, they live in big cities and things wouldn't be as a bad in most of those places.

Well the recent allowing of gay marriages in my state has allowed 2 of my friends to get married a few weeks ago, and I can say without a doubt they would make great parents. And I know it's cliche to say it: but they would make better parents then a lot of the straight parents I know. They are both really good with my kid and one of them is an Aunt like 4 times over so she's got tons of experience with children of all ages. So yeah I'd have to say gays should be allowed to adopt subject of course to the same criteria for eligibility as straight couples.

"Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business."

I voted yay. However, I actually made a speech at the University of Wisconsin, the capital building to be exact, about whether or not gays should be able to adopt. I said no and got out voted by about 120-10. I would say about 4 of those 10 were my friends or peers who didn't want me to look like a complete fool up there. I did anyway, gave a pretty ill prepared speech and deserved the snickers from the crowd as I gave the speech. That aside what is the SOMB opinion on that.

Should gays be allowed to adopt? Supposedly there has been research done that it doesn't effect the way a kid is brought up in any way. I actually know a child that is parented by two gay parents and he is very, very normal. And of course a home is a home and its better that a child goes to home of gays rather than a home of abusive white trash.

On the other side although it may not effect the child if word gets out he would be ridiculed like none other. The kid would become an outcast and might become just another tally on the ever growing juvenile suicide rate.

of course they should, you dope!

I'm actually amazed at the number of kids in our area being raised by gay parents. I've never heard any kids make fun of any of them. Some are really great kids. Some are pains in the butt. IN other words, they're pretty damn normal.

ugh.

What he said. My realtors adopted a little girl and then a year later when the mom got pregnant again she contacted them to ask them to adopt the new baby too. So it's cool, they have these natural siblings (who were crack babies) and are giving them a great life. They take them to a private school in Berkeley where all the families are "alternative," so their kids will feel as normal as possible while growing up (they were worried that public schools could get pressured by extremist groups and ban books that validate alternative families, etc.).

The other thing nobody talks about is the joy these adoptions bring to grandparents who thought they'd never get to be grandparents.

The only apparent progress of equal rights in Illinois is a bill(HB1826) that would recognize same sex unions filed by Rep. Greg Harris earlier this year. Since then, this is the current timeline.

6/30/2007 House Final Action Deadline Extended-9( July 31, 2007
7/31/2007 House Final Action Deadline Extended-9( August 4, 2007
8/4/2007 House Final Action Deadline Extended-9( August 10, 2007
8/10/2007 House Final Action Deadline Extended-9( August 17, 2007
8/17/2007 House Final Action Deadline Extended-9( August 24, 2007
8/24/2007 House Final Action Deadline Extended-9( September 5, 2007
9/5/2007 House Final Action Deadline Extended-9( October 5, 2007

There's no point in public initiative, as this case is being handled by jerks. But I am curious as to what the SOMB stance is on it.

I'm against all marriage; gay straight, kangaroo. It's a bigger racket than war. And war is a pretty big racket, you know...